Prestige or Dominance: How Do You Earn Your Place?
Being looked up to and being obeyed are two different roads to the top
In every group - an office, a family, a football squad - some people end up with more say than others. Research on human status found that they tend to get there by one of two routes. Some are followed because others value what they know and want to learn from them. Others are followed because disagreeing with them is uncomfortable. Both routes work, which is the unsettling part, and most people lean on one more than the other without ever having named it.
Before you start There are no right answers. Pick what is usually true for you, not what sounds best.
Think of the groups you spend most time in - work, family, friends - and answer about how you usually are there, not about the one time you lost your temper.
What it measures
Two strategies from the dominance-prestige model: prestige, influence that others grant freely because they respect your skill or knowledge, and dominance, influence taken through pressure, intimidation or control. A third bar measures how much you want status at all. Unlike our leadership test, which looks at how you manage a team you were given, this is about how you gain standing in any group, formal or not.
Based on: Dominance-prestige model of social status (Cheng, Tracy & Henrich, 2010; Cheng et al., 2013)
Possible results
Prestige
Influence that others give you because they value what you know or can do.
Dominance
Influence taken through pressure, intimidation or control.
Status drive
How much it matters to you to be respected and to count in a group.
Common questions
Is dominance the same as leadership?
No. Dominance is one way of gaining influence, and leadership is a role that can be filled using either route. The 2013 studies found that both dominant and prestigious people rose in newly formed groups, but only the prestigious ones were also liked. In practice, many leaders use both routes in different mixes.
Can I be high in both prestige and dominance?
Yes. The research treats them as two distinct strategies rather than opposites, so every combination exists. A person high on both is often admired for their competence and feared for their temper at the same time. That mix can be effective in the short run, but people tend to leave or quietly resist the dominant side once they have learned what they came to learn.
Is wanting status a bad thing?
Not in itself. The 2015 review defined status as respect and voluntary deference, which is different from wanting money or power over others, and found the desire for it in every culture and age group studied. What matters more is the route: seeking respect by becoming useful to people tends to benefit the group as well as you.
Sources
- Cheng, J. T., Tracy, J. L., & Henrich, J. (2010). Pride, personality, and the evolutionary foundations of human social status. Evolution and Human Behavior. doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2010.02.004
- Cheng, J. T., Tracy, J. L., Foulsham, T., Kingstone, A., & Henrich, J. (2013). Two ways to the top: Evidence that dominance and prestige are distinct yet viable avenues to social rank and influence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. doi:10.1037/a0030398
- Anderson, C., Hildreth, J. A. D., & Howland, L. (2015). Is the desire for status a fundamental human motive? A review of the empirical literature. Psychological Bulletin. doi:10.1037/a0038781
An honest note The items are Quinthea's own wording, adapted from the published dominance and prestige scales, so scores are not comparable to the published norms. Only the first two bars correspond to that model; status drive is a related construct from the status literature, not a validated factor of it. The original studies added ratings by peers to self-report, most evidence comes from Western samples, and intimidating others is not easy to admit - treat the dominance bar as a floor.